


Medical Histories

by SML8180



Series: Family Sticks Together [6]
Category: Markiplier-fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abuse of Power, Asthma, Chronic Pain, Depression, Headaches & Migraines, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Injury, Possible medical inaccuracies, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Twins, alternative medicine, mirror twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24163504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SML8180/pseuds/SML8180
Summary: Dr. Iplier is settling in at the manor, learning his way around, and getting his little office set up the way he wanted it. Unable to find any records on the medical histories of anyone living at the manor, the doctor decides to take matters into his own hands and find out the information he needs for himself.
Series: Family Sticks Together [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589101
Comments: 22
Kudos: 65





	1. RJ

RJ entered Dr. Iplier’s office alone. The newest addition to the manor had come around a few weeks prior, and in the midst of him working on getting his little office in the manor set up and getting information on the nearby hospital sorted in order to apply for a job there, the doctor had stated that he wanted to talk to each of the current residents of the manor in order to pull together a rough medical history for each of them.

When the reporter entered the office, he found Dr. Iplier setting some supplies on a shelf in one of the cabinets that lined the walls of the room. The man’s coat was on a hook behind the desk, which held several papers, an open box, and a laptop that had clearly seen better days.

“Take a seat, sorry about the chaos that is the desk, right now, everything’s all over the place,” Dr. Iplier told RJ, speaking over his shoulder as he moved a few things on the shelf in front of him in order to get one last thing put away. Once he was finished, he shut the cabinet door and approached the desk, moving the box over to the counter to get it out of the way while RJ sat down. The doctor took a seat across from the reporter and opened up the beat-up laptop. “First thing’s first, I want to be sure I’m talking to the correct twin, you  _ are  _ RJ, right?”

“Mm-hm!” RJ hummed in response. “If you’re ever confused about which one of us you’re talking to, just look at our hair.”

“Your hair?” Dr. Iplier cocked an eyebrow, looking over the top of the laptop screen at RJ.

“Yeah, our hair,” the man replied. “I’m right handed, so I normally brush my hair to the right, just easier that way. CJ’s left handed, so he brushes his hair to the left.”

“That makes a lot of sense, actually, I just thought you were both ambidextrous,”

“You’re not the first, don’t worry,”

Dr. Iplier nodded, making a quick mental note to himself to commit this new detail about the twins to memory. “We’re just going to go through some basic medical history, so I have an idea of what I’m working with,” he stated. “We’ll start simple, birthdate?”

“October 10th,” RJ answered.

Dr. Iplier nodded, typing the date into the document he’d opened to record what he learned. Dark had told him not to worry about birth years if they weren’t given to him, and though it wasn’t usual practice, Dr. Iplier simply went with it, seeing as  _ none _ of this was usual practice, in the first place. “Now, height and weight? If you know off the top of your head.”

“5 foot 8 inches, 147 pounds.”

“Any allergies?”

“Seasonal ones, but nothing bad; just pollen.”

“Have you ever sustained a serious injury?”

RJ couldn’t help but laugh a bit, “You could say that.”

Once again, Dr. Iplier cocked an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate?”

“Field reporting isn’t exactly the safest thing, so of course I’ve gotten hurt before. Broken bones, sprains, that kind of thing,” RJ told him. “Some of the breaks were pretty bad, bone coming through and everything.”

“So, history of sprains and broken bones. Do you have an estimate on how many breaks you’ve had?”

“I think I’ve broken my right leg twice, once where the bone came through everything. Both arms’ve gone, too, different incidents, but still, once where the bone came through my skin, on my left arm,” the reporter stated, rolling up the sleeve of his bright blue shirt to show off a faded scar on his left arm. “Sprained my ankles a bunch of times, I dunno how many, though.”

Dr. Iplier nodded as he listened to RJ speak, glancing up to see the man’s scar. He knew that depending on how well it was taken care of, a compound fracture could leave much more of a scar than a standard break. Although, the scar RJ had was much more prominent than he had expected, making it seem as if the injury had been sustained during a time where standards for doctors weren’t held quite so high, and there was more concern over simply making sure there was no infection. “Anything else?”

“For injuries? Nothing, really. Well, nothing that lasted, anyways.”

“What do you mean?”

“Um, just, minor scrapes and stuff.”

“Are you sure? If there’s something I should know about, you can tell me,” the doctor questioned. “Anything you tell me about here, stays here, if you’re concerned about that. Unless I feel Dark  _ needs  _ to know about something, everything’s locked up in here.”

“It’s just hard to talk about,” RJ told him. “None of it matters, anyway, it wasn’t anything major.” The man’s tone, usually upbeat and quick, had become more nervous, as if he wanted to get off the topic as quickly as possible.

“Alright… I suppose we can always come back to it another time. Moving on; have you had any operations that weren’t related to an injury?”

“Nope,” RJ replied, his tone quickly returning to normal.

“Any major illnesses?”

“Oh, yeah,” RJ nodded, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ve had Pneumonia a couple times, that wasn’t a good time. And, there was one time I got really sick and we still don’t actually know what I had. All any of us know is that I got sick fast, and stayed that way for what felt like forever, and almost didn’t make it.” The reporter’s normally excited tone had become more somber as he spoke about the time he was sick.

“That’s pretty bad,” Dr. Iplier commented as he took down the information, typing quickly on the worn keys of his laptop’s keyboard. “You pulled through, though, that’s the important part, in the end. Do you have any lasting issues from any of this?”

“At some point after I got Pneumonia the second time, I started having trouble breathing sometimes. I’ve always just thought it was because it messed up my lungs and kinda just put up with it.”

“Do you still have trouble breathing at times?”

“Sorta,” RJ shrugged. “If CJ and I are doing stuff outside and it’s really humid, I have to stop and catch my breath. I get all wheezy and my chest feels all tight for a while, but it goes away.”

The doctor nodded, taking down a few notes on his laptop. “I want to try doing some tests with you in a bit, alright?”

“Tests? What for?”

“Going by the symptoms you just listed off, I’ve got the feeling you might have Asthma. Do you know of anyone in your family with breathing problems, a parent or grandparent?”

“Our Mom had problems breathing, sometimes, but I don’t remember it being really bad.”

“Well, there could be a link there. We’ll go through some tests sometime soon, and go from there. If it turns out to be asthma, I can get you on an inhaler to help manage it.”

“I like the sound of that,” RJ smiled, giving a bit of a nod.

Dr. Iplier couldn’t help but smile in return, making a note for himself to run a couple of tests on RJ in the near future. “I think that’s about it, unless anything else comes to mind for you.”

“Nope, that just about covers it, I think.”

“Then I think we’re all set; you can go do, whatever it is you do. Oh! If you see your brother, could you send him over here? I need to talk to him, next.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” RJ nodded, standing up from his seat and leaving the office.


	2. CJ

CJ had been working on his camera at his desk in the bedroom he and RJ shared when his brother told him that the newest Ego in the manor, Dr. Iplier, had asked for him to come to his office. The cameraman set the lens and cleaning cloth in his hands down on the desk and went to the doctor’s small office, knocking on the doorframe to catch the man’s attention.

“There’s our resident cameraman,” Dr. Iplier greeted, looking up from organizing a couple of things on his desk. “Come in, take a seat.”

CJ nodded a bit, entering the office and shutting the door behind him, before taking a seat across from the doctor. “RJ said you wanted to talk to me?”

“That’s right. I’m putting together some records on the manor’s current residents, just the stuff I should have on hand,” Dr. Iplier replied, opening up a new document on his laptop. “I already have your birthdate filled in, thanks to RJ, so we’ll start off with height and weight.”

“I’m the same height as RJ, 5 foot 8. 177 pounds,” CJ answered.

“That’s a 30 pound difference between the two of you. I’m guessing you have more muscle?” Dr. Iplier asked, punching in what he’d just been told.

“Yeah. You build up a lot of muscle carrying equipment around like I do.”

“That makes sense. Do you have any allergies?”

“None to speak of.”

“Have you sustained any serious injuries in the past?”

“Yeah, a few. Broken bones here and there, some sprains, that sort of thing. Dislocated my shoulder a few times, too, from picking up my camera wrong,” CJ replied. “Overall, I’d say three breaks, between my left leg and left arm. God knows how many times I’ve sprained my wrists and ankles, though.”

“Any other injuries you’ve sustained? Anything recent, within the past six months or so?” Dr. Iplier asked, entering in the information CJ was giving him.

“Well… Yeah…” the cameraman’s tone seemed to shift a bit, as he redirected his gaze from the doctor to the edge of the desk and rubbed at the back of his neck. The man almost seemed nervous as he spoke. “There was another Ego here in the manor, The Author… Dark booted him a couple weeks before you got here, because, well… We were all getting hurt…”

“By The Author? What happened?” Dr. Iplier became more serious, now, upon hearing that someone else from the manor had caused harm to those he’d come around to help.

“The Author, he’s got these, these abilities, I guess. Whatever he wrote down, it would happen. I guess he hadn’t been able to do it before, but, developed it over time? We still don’t know for sure. All any of us know, is that he realized the potential of what he could do, and… And he decided we would be his lab rats…” CJ’s voice seemed to shake a bit, and he held his hands tight in his lap to keep them from shaking.

“What did he do, CJ? Who did he hurt?”

“He focused on King, RJ, and me… It was all little stuff at first, bruises and scratches, like the ones everyone finds on themselves sometimes. But, it got worse… I don’t know about King, but, I  _ know  _ RJ and I have scars from some of the stuff he did. RJ won’t talk about any of it, he’s too scared to, he tries not to think about it. Sometimes I can’t  _ stop _ thinking about it…”

Dr. Iplier quietly nodded, taking notes on what he was hearing. The thought of someone who could hurt you by simply writing the act down was frightening enough as an idea. Knowing that someone was out there, roaming around, with that kind of power, was honestly terrifying, even to the man who’d never even met The Author. He made a note to himself to try to ask Dark and King about this other Ego at some point. “We can move on, if you want. We can always pick the topic up another time.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” CJ replied.

“Have you ever had any operations that weren’t related to an injury?” the Doctor questioned.

“I had my tonsils out at some point. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember not wanting to be apart from RJ when it was done, so I was probably pretty young.”

“Do you know the reason you had your tonsils out?”

“I kept getting these white things developing in my tonsils, and it felt like there was always something stuck in my throat, so the doctor had me get them removed.”

Dr. Iplier nodded, typing up the information. “Any other operations?”

“Nope.”

“Have you had any serious illnesses?”

“I caught Pneumonia from RJ the second time he had it. We were both laid up for a couple weeks, I think. Other than that, I’ve had the flu a couple times, but that’s about it.”

“RJ expressed that he has trouble breathing during times of high activity or humidity. Have you had any similar issues?”

“Actually, I have, for a long time. My chest gets tight, and I wheeze, and sometimes I start coughing. It passes, though.”

“Looks like I’ll be testing both of you for Asthma coming up. If my theory is correct, I’ll be able to get you two each on an inhaler to help manage it. Should make things a bit easier.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“I’m glad,” Dr. Iplier smiled, making a few final notes. “Unless there’s anything else that comes to mind, you can head out.”

CJ nodded, standing up from his seat. “Is there anyone you want me to send up here?”

“If you come across Wilford or King, could you send one of them up?”

“Of course.”


	3. Wilford Wafstache

Wilford hummed a cheerful tune as he walked into Dr. Iplier’s office later in the day. CJ had said something about the doctor wanting to talk to him, so he’d made his way up after he finished helping Dark into his office to get some work done.

Dr. Iplier looked towards the door as he heard the humming coming from the pink-clad man, and set the frame he’d been working to hang on the wall down on the desk, taking a seat. “Take a seat, Wilford,” he prompted, motioning to the chair across from him.

“Well don’t mind if I do!” Wilford cheerfully replied, plopping down into the seat and resting his right ankle on his left knee.

“Alright, I just need to ask you a few things, build up a basic medical profile on you. Think of it like an interview,” Dr. Iplier informed the man, as he opened up a new document to work with.

“I’m ready when you are,” the bow-tie wearing man smiled.

“Alright, date of birth?”

“November 9th.”

“Height and weight?”

“6 foot 1, 185, I think,” Wil mused. “That sounds right, at least.”

“As long as it’s fairly close, it’s fine. We can always check if we need to,” Dr. Iplier replied, typing up the information. “Any allergies?”

“Not a one!” Wilford answered proudly.

“Have you sustained any serious injuries?”

“Oh, plenty!” Wil ran a hand through his hair, laughing a bit. “Lots of scars from things I don’t remember, broken bones I’ve lost track of, cracked ribs come to mind, might be a skull fracture in there somewhere, too…” the man paused, thinking back to try to recall anything else. After a short moment of silence, he continued to speak. “I remember being in a skiing accident at one point, went right into a tree, a bit fuzzy on the details, though. Then there was a hot air balloon accident, I’ve still got scars from all the burns. Pretty sure I’ve been shot and stabbed a few times along the way, too. Aaand, I  _ think  _ that’s about it.”

“That’s, quite the list…” Dr. Iplier responded, shocked by the various situations he’d just been presented with as he hurried to type everything into the document in front of him.

“There might be others I’m forgetting, but that feels like most of them.”

“I guess we’ll move on, then… Have you undergone any operations not related to an injury?”

“I don’t think so. Nothing comes to mind, at least.”

“Alright. Have you experienced any serious illness?”

“I’ve had the flu a number of times, and I might have had TB at one point, but I’m fuzzy on that one. Maybe some infections from stuff I don’t remember.”

“So, possible case of TB, various possible infections, but nothing you can clearly remember otherwise?”

“Yep!”

Dr. Iplier nodded, inputting the information he was told, and saving the document. “Unless there’s anything else that comes to mind, I think we’re all set here.”

“This was a nice little chat!” Wil mused, standing up from his seat across from the doctor.

“If you see King, could you send him up? I haven’t talked with him, yet.”

“Will do, Doc!” With that, Wilford left the little office, humming a nameless cheerful tune as he went.


	4. King of the Squirrels

King was just coming back inside from roaming the forest that surrounded the manor when Wilford approached him. The reporter had said that Dr. Iplier wanted to speak with him, before seeming to vanish in a puff of pink smoke. With a simple shrug, King made his way to the office that housed the newest Ego in the manor.

“Dr. Iplier? Wil said you wanted to see me?” he mentioned, softly knocking on the doorframe.

“That’s right, take a seat,” Dr. Iplier invited. “I just need to get a general medical profile on you, so I know what I’m working with.”

“Makes sense,” King took a seat across from the doctor, sitting up straighter than the others the man had spoken to.

“We’ll start with the basics, birthdate?”

“January 23rd, 1989,” King replied.

“Height and weight?”

“5 foot 11, 180 pounds.”

“Alright, not bad. Any allergies?”

“I’ve got some mild pollen and mold allergies, but nothing too bad,” King shrugged as he replied.

“Do you have any history of serious injuries?” Dr. Iplier questioned, taking down the information he was being told.

“A few, yeah,” the man replied. “Broken my arms and legs a couple times each, I think, sprained wrists and rolled ankles, all that. Took a fall down a ridge one time while on a hike with a few friends, ended up getting air-lifted out with a broken arm and leg, a couple busted ribs, cracked vertebrae and god knows how many cuts and bruises. Couldn’t tell you how many stitches they put in me.” The man spoke nonchalantly about the serious injuries he’d sustained, almost as if he were speaking in a job interview.

“That’s pretty serious,” the doctor remarked, taking down the information.

“You don’t spend as much time out in the woods as I do without getting hurt sometimes. It’s bound to happen,” King shrugged.

“I guess you’re right. Have you been through any operations unrelated to an injury?”

“I had surgery to remove a tumor from my adrenal glands when I was younger, wasn’t cancerous or anything, just had to come out.”

“Alright, that’s good. Any serious illnesses?”

“I don’t think you want to know how many times I’ve had to go through the Rabies treatment…” King sheepishly admitted. “I’ve been bit by different animals more times than I care to admit. Never squirrels, though.”

“Alright, I think that about covers it, unless there’s anything else that comes to mind.”

“I don’t think there’s anything else, at least nothing that comes to mind.”

“Then I guess we’re all set, you’re free to go,” the doctor smiled.

“I’ll see you later, Doc,” King replied, smiling a bit as he stood up.

Dr. Iplier watched as King’s red cape fluttered behind him as he left the room, before turning to finish typing up the last of the information for King’s file. The man hadn’t even hinted at anything having to do with the Author, which somewhat concerned him. He’d have to do a bit of digging in order to fill things out a bit more. That would have to wait, though, he still had to talk with Dark.


	5. Darkiplier

Dark had been working most of the day, sitting at his desk, filling out paperwork for an assortment of different things, trying to get manor affairs in order. With more people in the manor, rather than it simply being himself, Wilford, and the twins, there were things that he had to work out in terms of logistics. The grey Ego had just set his pen down, rubbing at his eyes in order to take just a short break, when he heard a knock at the door to his office.

“Who is it?” he questioned, resting his head against his hand, with his eyes shut.

“Um, it’s Dr. Iplier? I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes,” came the voice of the newest addition to the manor.

“Come in,” Dark invited, straightening up in his chair as the doctor entered the room, carrying a beat-up laptop. “Take a seat, let’s get this over with.”

Dr. Iplier entered the office, looking around a bit as he shut the door and made his way over to the desk, taking a seat in the chair across from Dark and perching his laptop on his lap, opening the lid and opening up a new document. “I’ll try to get through this as quickly as possible, so you can get back to work.”

“Go ahead and start, then,” Dark prompted.

“Oh, um, of course,” the doctor nodded, trying to get his bearings and ignore the ever-present ringing that surrounded the older Ego. “Date of birth?”

“October 13th,” Dark answered calmly, folding his hands on the desk in front of him.

“Height and weight?”

“6 foot even, 170 pounds.”

“Do you have any allergies?”

“I had a general pollen allergy when I was younger, but I seem to have grown out of that as I’ve gotten older.”

The doctor nodded, taking down his notes, “Alright, so that would be a no, that’s good. Have you sustained any serious injuries?”

At this question, Dark couldn’t help but let out a deep, echoing chuckle. “This body has been through the wringer.”

Dr. Iplier looked up at Dark, seeming a bit confused. “Could you, be a bit more specific?”

“I took a shot to the knee when I was a teenager, later in life I was shot in the abdomen, and fell from a second floor balcony, which resulted in, at the very least, a broken left arm, dislocated right shoulder, broken neck, and possibly a cracked skull. I’ve taken falls down staircases, and the like as well over the years.”

“That’s, quite a list. At least you were able to recover, I’d say you got lucky, there,” Dr. Iplier replied, taking down notes on what Dark was telling him, his fingers moving quickly over the keys in front of him.

“There is a  _ reason  _ I deal with chronic pain and have no response to normal medications, Dr. Iplier. I wouldn’t exactly call my situation lucky,” Dark told the man across from him. “I did not  _ survive _ that incident, not in any normal sense of the word. I am alive, yes, but there is a difference between being alive and surviving.”

“I… I don’t think I understand…” the newest Ego responded, looking at Dark with a mix of confusion and concern.

“The body you see before you, Doctor, is dead,” Dark bluntly told him. “It is  _ dead _ , and it has been dead since 1925. I do not need to breathe, my heart does not beat, my skin is cold. I am kept alive by an entity that once bent the very fabric of reality within the borders of this property.” The grey Ego sighed as he finished speaking, hunching over the desk a bit and holding his head in his hands as the ringing that filled the room fluctuated in volume and pitch around the pair, the red and blue outline around him flickered wildly as his shell visibly cracked for a second. The man took a few slow, deep breaths, as his aura slowly came back under his control. “I am an abomination which shouldn’t  _ exist _ …” he mumbled, finding himself drained and unable to look back up at the doctor across from him.

“I may be a doctor more versed in physical ailments,” Dr. Iplier began, once he felt Dark had calmed to the point where he was able to listen, “but, in my professional opinion, I believe you may be battling with a few mental disorders in varying degrees. The two standing out most to me right now would be most likely a mild form of depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he stated, keeping his voice calm.

“What?” Dark questioned, glancing up at the doctor across from him. “You… That’s what you choose to focus on? You just learned that you’re talking to a dead man.”

“I had my suspicions that you were anything but a normal person when I first met you, Dark. Like you said, your skin is cold, and I know what a corpse feels like. With how chaotic everything here clearly is, this house having rooms it logically could never have, Wilford well, being Wilford, and all that, I’ve decided it best to simply roll with whatever comes around, for sanity’s sake,” Dr. Iplier replied, giving a bit of a shrug. “You’ve been around for a  _ long  _ time, Dark, and things have changed. You don’t need to just put up with these things anymore, there are plenty of options for help out there.”

“Medications don’t work,” Dark informed the man across from him.

“Then we try a non-pharmaceutical approach,” Iplier suggested. “There are plenty of natural remedies that can help reduce anxiety responses and improve sleep, journaling can help to settle the mind and get intrusive and negative thoughts out of your system, and techniques like measured breathing and grounding can help keep you in the moment, rather than spiraling into a severe episode. We might not be able to medicate you, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to help.”

Dark quietly thought all this over, slowly nodding. He knew that Dr. Iplier was right, that things had changed, and that there were plenty of things they could try in order to help. It had been so long since he’d slept through the night with no issue, since storms hadn’t caused him to panic, that he couldn’t remember what it was like. He finally looked up at the doctor, finally able to speak, “Alright… I suppose it would be worth it to try some things…” he admitted.

Dr. Iplier couldn’t help the smile that came to his face as he nodded, making a few notes to start looking into different things he could offer to Dark in order to help him. “That’s good to hear. Now, if you’re feeling up for it, I do still have a few questions to ask. I can always come back later, if you’d prefer.”

“No, no, we might as well keep going,” Dark assured him, straightening up in his chair a bit.

“As long as you’re sure,” Dr. Iplier replied. “Have you had any operations unrelated to previous injuries?”

“Not that I recall. All the operations were the result of the damage done to my knee.”

“That’s good, at least. Have you ever had any serious illness?”

“I had a couple severe cases of influenza as a child, and a case of chickenpox, but nothing else I can remember.”

“Alright, I think that should be it,” the doctor stated, typing up the rest of the information he’d learned. “I’ll talk to an old connection of mine to get some suggestions of things we can try to do in order to help you. Things’ll get better.”

“I hope you’re right,” Dark responded.

“Unless there’s anything else you’d like to add, I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” the grey Ego merely stated, picking up his pen once more.

Dr. Iplier simply nodded, saving the document in front of him and shutting his laptop. He stood from his seat and left the office, shutting the door behind him. The doctor let out a breath as he made his way down the hall, back towards his office. He certainly had a fair bit of work to do around here, if the rough medical histories he had pulled together were any indicator.


End file.
